Travel

By Tom Steward | Watchdog Minnesota

In the waning days of the Minnesota State Legislature’s 2015 session, unfinished business stemming from a Watchdog Minnesota investigation surfaced on the Senate floor.  The issue:  How to rein in a State Arts Board program that’s sent dozens of Minnesota artists on taxpayer-funded trips around the world?

ART CRITIC: Sen. Michelle Benson wants all out of state taxpayer-funded travel for artists stopped.

“At a time when we’re asking taxpayers to do more with less, at a time when we are not funding road projects, at a time when we’re not funding libraries, members it’s time to ask ourselves if we need to be funding trips to Turkey ,” said Assistant Minority Leader Sen. Michele Benson, R-Ham Lake, in floor debate.  “Do we need to be funding trips to Paraguay. even trips to New York and Los Angeles …is it really a good use of taxpayer dollars?”

In March, Watchdog Minnesota reported that 114 recipients of Artist Initiative grants issued by the Minnesota State Arts Board since 2009  will have traveled to at least 40 countries and 20 states by the end of 2015.  The grants, which range from $2,000 to $10,000, pay for artistic development, conferences, residences, performances, marketing and the “contribution individual artists make to the creative environment of the state of Minnesota”, according to the State Arts Board.

Grants including out-of-state trips accounted for about 15 percent of 730 Artist Initiative grants totaling $5.6 million.  For example, landscape painter Melissa Loop-Anderson was awarded $10,000 to spend several weeks this spring in French Polynesia. creating paintings to “focus on colonialism and subjugation through the military and tourist industry.”

As the legislature considered the State Arts Board 2015-15 appropriations earlier this month, a Watchdog list of artists’ publicly-paid trips toBali, Tahiti, Pompeii, Costa Rica and the Arctic Circle among other exotic destinations made its way around the Senate floor.

“My colleagues and I got so frustrated we put the list out on the floor,” Benson said in an interview.  “Pretty much everybody was in agreement that there was some ridiculousness in it.”

The revelations led Finance Committee Chairman, Sen. Richard Cohen, DFL-St. Paul. an ardent supporter of arts programs, to agree reforms needed to be instituted for out-of-state travel-related arts grants. The legislature passed a restriction limiting travel expenses outside the state to less than 10 percent of an artist’s grant.

“The Arts Board intends to comply with this requirement,” said Sue Gens. executive director of the Minnesota State Arts Board, in an email to Watchdog Minnesota.

Some changes can already be viewed on the State Arts Board website. Previous references to how “travel to exotic locations really needs to be ‘sold’ to the panel” and hypothetical examples on traveling to master woodcarvers in Bali or Hawaii do not appear on the 2015 application for Artist Initiative grants. The guidelines, however, still allow travel for artistic research, workshops, conference and “the realization of specific creative ideas or other purposes that will contribute to the artist’s professional growth and development”.

“Senator Benson’s message has been delivered to the State Arts Board,” said Cohen to members on the last day of the legislative session Monday. “They’ve had conversations, I’ve had conversations with them, they’ve had conversations internally about looking at what happens with travel.”

COHEN: the message has been delivered to the State Arts Board.

Legislators have also told the State Arts Board they expect tougher restrictions related to the agency s grants with out-of-state travel or they should expect more legislative attention next year.

Cohen told Watchdog Minnesota that he agrees with Benson that taxpayer-funded foreign travel under state arts grants should be prohibited.

“I would think so. That strikes me as being a little bit far afield,” Cohen said.  “If an individual artist wants to do something that might relate to the state of Minnesota and needs to travel elsewhere, there are other places to look for grants, the McKnight Foundation. for instance, as a private foundation.  It would seem to me there are other avenues than the State Arts Board.”

“The proof is in the pudding,” Benson said.  “Generally, stakeholders have some pretty good ideas if they’re serious about reform.  If they’re not serious, we’ll just make it happen in legislation next year.”

In 2015-15 the State Arts Board will receive more than $53 million in so-called Legacy Amendment sales tax funds that are restricted to activities in Minnesota.  Taxpayer-supported grants for out-of-state travel come from appropriations to the State Arts Board from the general fund.

Contact Tom Steward at tom@watchdogminnesota.org.